Lies, Spies, And Supernatural Eyes
by Alas Poor Yorcake
Summary: The Winchesters never existed. John, Mary, Dean, and Sam Winchester all died in the house fire that suddenly started some twenty years ago. Two brothers, Bryce Larkin and Neal Caffrey, never wanted to be hunters... Full Summary Inside. Supernatural/White Collar/Chuck Crossover
1. Chapter 1

**Summary: The Winchesters never existed. John, Mary, Dean, and Sam Winchester all died in the house fire that suddenly started some twenty years ago. Two brothers, Bryce Larkin and Neal Caffrey, never wanted to be hunters. But, after their father was taken away and they were put into Witness Protection, their mother found it necessary to teach them the things that the Larkin couple had known their whole lives. Now, as Bryce and Neal are separated and managing their own lives, they are brought back together by something stronger than anything they have ever hunted. But, coming back together as a family may be harder than they thought, with the past, the present, and the future bearing down on them. Lies will be exposed, Spies will go undercover, and the Supernatural will follow them all the way through.**

**Disclaimer: I own Supernatural. And White Collar. And Chuck. Yes. All three. At the same time. This is true.**

**(I wish.)**

**Here we go, first chapter, newly revised! Hope you like! R&amp;R!**

* * *

Peter Burke knew something was up the moment that Neal's personal landline started ringing off the hook, as Neal seemed rather intensely reluctant to pay attention to it, never mind pick it up.

Not only was it odd that he wouldn't even look at it, but he _never_ got calls, with the exception of from his team. Noting the stiffness in the man's jaw and the slight shaking of his fingers as he finished his paperwork from their last case, Peter pursed his lips in thought, suddenly struck with a thought and left hoping with all of his being that this wasn't related to Kate. God knows the last thing Neal would need right now is a frustrated insurance worker trying to cover the legalities of Kate's death badgering Neal to the ends of the earth.

But if it wasn't … if it wasn't related to Kate, that meant he could do something. Meaning he _had_ to something about it. Standing from his office chair where he had been brooding in worry - not that he'd ever admit it - Peter made his way out of his office and on the way down to Neal's desk, passing Diana on the way. She raised her eyebrows pointedly and handed him a manilla folder case file with a wistful glance over at Neal.

"If he needs a distraction, this is definitely the case to go for. But Peter, if you're wrong, and what he needs is more time … "

"We'll burn that bridge when we come to it."

"Yeah, well. Let's just hope he's not standing on that bridge when we get there. We both know he was never good at swimming in the kind of waters he's drowning in now."

Peter didn't reply with but a frustrated nod, obviously choosing to exercise his right to remain silent while he pushed past her, beginning to descend the stairs.

"You gonna take that?" he called to Neal, stopping in front of his consultant's desk, the manila folder in hand. Neal glanced up, reaching for the folder with tightly-drawn lips and avoiding, steely eyes.

"Ah, ah, ah, Neal. I asked you a question," Peter said, lifting the folder just slightly out of Neal's reach. However, he greatly underestimated Neal's vehemence to preserve his silence, and stumbled a bit when Neal dived forward with speed unbeknownst to Peter at that time, and the folder was stolen from his unprepared fingers. Neal reclined backwards, flipping open the case file, his blue eyes scanning the pages with an analytical intensity Peter had only seen on him when he was meeting someone new and judging their character to the best of his abilities. He was using all he got on what he was focusing on.

Meanwhile, the con answered Peter's question with a stiff, "No."

Peter's eyebrows narrowed dangerously. "Neal…"

"Supposed forgery of the world's largest diamond ring, belonging to a rather prominent U.S. official … And then it was stolen. Wow. Bet that put a damper on the engagement," Neal remarked, effectively changing the subject with a knowing smirk that was a far length from his regular enthusiastic self.

Peter sighed, resisting the urge to scrub a hand down his face as he reluctantly acquiesced to the subject change - after all, the case _was_ originally meant as a distraction. At least Peter gained just a little relief that the case was doing its job correctly. Now if only Neal could be mentally well enough to do the same.

"Wife-to-be says it was stolen overnight, and the boyfriend believes her; surprise, surprise. Unfortunately for them, their insurance company _doesn't_ believe them," Peter says, and peers over the top of the folder, glancing momentarily at the landline - still screaming - before returning his gaze. "List of suspects are in there, as well as alibis for that night, including the ones for each other."

He watched Neal carefully graze his green eyes over the contents of the folder whilst the phone took a breath from its constant ringing and then started again.

Neal stopped his reading with a sigh and a flutter of exhausted, closing eyes, put the folder down, turned, and ripped the telephone cord straight out of the wall with one hand, muttering something along the lines of, "alone," and "overbearing." Peter cleared his throat, only a moment away from reprimanding the younger man, as the con man pinched two fingers on the bridge of his nose. However, he took one glance at the crease on Neal's face smoothen in relief, making him look five years younger and Peter found he didn't have the voice to berate him.

Picking the folder up from Neal's desk before he could open it again and ignoring Neal's attempt to grab it back, Peter gestured with it toward the elevator, giving a small tilt to encourage Neal to move. "You can read on the way there. C'mon."

Neal sighed, giving a small smile and picking up his jacket and hat, flipping both on and recovering within a split moment - or, more likely, Peter reluctantly realized, _pretended_ to recover - replying, "Alright, but I'm driving on the way back."

Peter scoffed, opening the elevator, pushing the ground floor button, and glancing at his watch absentmindedly.

"Keep dreaming, Slick."

* * *

The house at which they arrived was anything but a poor person's choice of residence; the walls were whitewashed, as were the fence and shed in the background, the grass was tidily kept, almost symmetrically neat in comparison to the garden blooming around the borders of the porch landing that led up to the soft magenta door. Everything was obviously new, or close to it.

Nodding in appreciation to the nice, suburban house, Neal ducked under the police tape and held it up for Peter to step through after shining his badge to some other FBI Forensics lackeys. They were stopped a moment later by a larger and slightly more intimidating man, despite the casual outfit and identical windbreaker all FBI agents were required to wear.

"Agent Peter Burke, I assume?" the man said, but before they could reply, he continued. "Which means you must be Mr. Neal Caffrey."

Instantly, Neal's demeanor changed from slightly irritated to wary but pridefully smug at being recognized. A smirk found its way onto his face again, and Peter internally sighed. Who knows how long it would take to deflate the man's ego again? The man went on.

"Pleasure to meet both of you. I'm Agent Crowley. Hughes assigned me as head for this case, so I do expect your full cooperation." He glanced between the two of them, assessing their expressions and nods of agreement.

Instead of speaking in a threatening or commanding manner like Peter had expected - though wouldn't have recognized anyway, as the man's British accent was just a tad too full to be completely intelligible - he just spoke it as if he was sure they would do what he said, whether inclined to or not. Peter took a closer look at the man, finding nothing out of the ordinary but stubble on his chin and lint on his suit. He seemed vaguely familiar, but Peter couldn't place it at the time, paying more attention to Crowley's next words.

"I'd also appreciate if you moved rather quickly; the political side of this matter seems to be slowing everyone down. Now, if you'd excuse me for a moment, I must attend to reprimanding the new agents for not doing their jobs," He growled softly, giving them a resolute nod and twisting abruptly, stalking closer to some agents leaning on the FBI van, having pleasant conversation. The intensity of the man's glare combined with the sudden change in vocal tone put both CI and Agent off for a moment, causing both of them to stare momentarily after the newly assigned head.

"'Head for this case'? _Him_? What on Earth is Hughes thinking?" Peter muttered with a lean closer to Neal, and the CI barely suppressed a laugh as he moved onto the steps of the porch of the house, leaving Peter to catch up to him.

"Don't laugh, he's technically your boss, too, which means he can tell you to do whatever he wants," Peter pointed out, sobering Neal up enough for him to stop laughing, but not enough to scare the smirk off of his face as he politely held the front door open for his boss.

As soon as they got inside the house, they saw Jones trot down the stairs and Diana excuse herself from the conversation she was currently having with the couple, both commandeering casual poses as they organized their thoughts to report their findings to Peter.

"Alright, what've we got?" Peter asked the room in general – everyone seemed to have something, even Neal, who was currently inspecting the doorknob, the windows, and the bottom of the rug. While Jones began to report, Peter kept his eyes trailing Neal, making sure he didn't cause too much trouble or wander off too far.

"Bedroom's ransacked. Whoever came in obviously didn't know exactly where the ring was, but nothing else seemed to be taken. Despite the mess, none of the forensics guys found any DNA or anything," Jones started, flicking off his gloves as Diana picked up the conversation. Peter turned towards her, letting his gaze leave Neal for the moment.

"Couldn't get much out of the couple that they'd already told the rest of our agents. Both of them went out for dinner to a packed restaurant, where he proposed. After that, they walked home together, stopping at the jewelry store to check its authenticity per the wife-to-be's insistence. Guy there said he was about sure it was real, and they went home. Girlfriend put it in its box in her drawer. Next morning, they woke up, and their bedroom was a mess. Nothing else was overturned, and the ring was the only thing gone."

"She wasn't wearing the ring?" Peter asked, and Neal answered, all of the attention suddenly on him.

"'Course not. You just got a priceless ring, you're gonna risk losing it in the bed on the first night?" He paused, standing up and wiping one hand on another. "Especially seeing as it was doubtful they went straight to sleep." Everyone looked up at him, and he just shrugged.

"What? I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want a priceless ring lost somewhere up in - "

"Yes, thank you, Neal, wonderful thought to start the day."

Neal frowned. "I was just going to say I wouldn't want it lost somewhere up in a barely unpacked room. You'd never be able to find it." He gave his caretaker a reproachful look. "You might want to get your mind out of the gutter, Peter. You'll spoil it."

He grinned at the rest of his company's annoyed, blank looks, and switched topics, with a faltering expression that gave away just how much of a sense of humor he thought everyone else had.

"Lock on the front door's definitely intact, though there was a little wear, so someone probably tried to get in that way, but gave up. Windows are all secure, and so is the basement."

"Basement?" the groom-to-be and U.S. official's fiancé stepped forward with a somewhat bemused expression, still gripping his fiancé's arms in his clammy hands. "We don't have a basement."

Neal's eyebrows shot up, and he replied with nothing but a jump, landing with a resounding thump – a sound that echoed too far under them for there to only be solid concrete. "Hear that? Congratulations, that's your basement. And I would fire my real estate agent if I were you." Neal turned back to Peter. "Seeing as there's no way into the basement via the _inside_ of the house, I'm going to take a wild guess and say that the basement has nothing to do with it."

"So how _did_ the thief get in?" Peter asked, moving around the room and searching for any tells. There was nothing on the floor, the corners were secure, as were all of the side entrances, the walls were fit, the ceiling –

"The ceiling," Peter said, addressing the couple. "Do you have a skylight, or an attic, something that might've been big enough for someone to get in?"

"Er, there's an old timey chimney upstairs in the bedroom across the hall; the old owners used to pay a boy down the street to clean it out for them. Would that work?" The man swallowed, glancing at his fiancé. "W-we never bothered moving in there, because we didn't need the extra space. So we just put everything we didn't find a place for there. You … You're not thinking …"

"I'm thinking _exactly_ that," Peter finished for him, dashing up the steps while his team followed, Neal bounding up in the rear. The couple lead them to the threshold at the end of the hallway, then stepped back for the team to do their job.

They got to the other bedroom, and paused at the entrance. There was no real room, just overflowing boxes stacked on top of each other and various clothes and supplies littering the floor. Standing – or, rather, _crumbling_ – at the opposite side of the room was the previously mentioned chimney.

Neal was the first to go in, stepping over two stacked toolboxes and placing his feet expertly around the different items that he was sure could have been placed in certain places in the house. He finally reached the chimney, looking around for fingerprints, footprints, anything that would suggest someone crawling down through it. After finding nothing and looking up the sooty shaft, he took a risk, rubbed his hand down the aged bricks, and smelled it.

Instantly, his memory surged, and his eyes widened as he recognized the scent and whipped around to Peter, frowning and saying, "Got something."

Rubbing the yellow, soot-like substance on the interior of an offered evidence bag, he internally groaned.

Sulfur was never a good sign at a crime scene.

* * *

"Why would the CIA have anything to do with a stolen engagement ring, though?" Peter asked in the elevator, but Neal just gave a half-irritated, half-frustrated shrug, tapping his foot impatiently as he eyed the numbers rising on the digital screen above. Had he not already been on edge these past few months, Neal would have been more willingly communicative. But any passing mention of his past made him extremely uncomfortable and extremely irritable.

"Just trust me with this, Peter. I don't know why they were there. But it's not good," he replied with a dark look to the elevator doors as a ping echoed through the metal container.

Peter spared a glance toward his oddly jittery CI, who was looking down at his shoes with a dismal resemblance of a smile, and shook his head, allowing his train of thought to continue.

On the way back to the department building, Neal had explained that the lack of footprints or fingerprints could only lead to someone way more skilled in stealth than anybody would give credit for – therefore, CIA. Peter knew there was more, knowing that wasn't a logical jump if you only had the evidence the team had been given, but he left it alone when Neal told him to leave it and just trust him. Peter didn't know why Neal was so set on the CIA, but he did trust the con. So he left it.

Neal, however, knew exactly why the CIA was involved. Or, rather, why he was getting the CIA involved.

Many informants had confided in him too many times about the threat of the number of Fulcrum agents expanding in the CIA. And if the CIA was brought into this case, and became involved in the theft of a priceless diamond ring, then Internal Affairs would be brought in.

And as much as he hates Fowler with every fibre of his being, having Internal Affairs sniffing around in the CIA would help everyone as much as possible, and hasten the hunters that Neal knows are undercover in Internal Affairs to solve whatever demon problem is going on so that they can all go back to their regular lives.

It also wouldn't help to have some Internal Affairs agents in the White Collar crime unit, just to scare the Fulcrum agents out of going undercover. Neal just hoped he could keep himself back from shooting Fowler in the face the first time he lay eyes on him.

Letting his mind drift for a moment, he swallowed and wondered what would happen if he did end up ganking Fowler himself. Ganking, yes, not killing, because Garrett Fowler wasn't a man but a monster.

No. No, he wasn't a monster. Kate's death wasn't caused by a monster, which was what made it so significant to Neal. Sans, of course, her death marking the end of everything Neal had ever loved. If Kate was killed by a monster, that would just make her another random victim under the monster's belt and another victim attributed to Neal's past. Her death would be his fault. But Fowler wasn't a monster; he was worse than a monster.

He was human.

And Neal would accept the murder charge with a driven smile and a triumphant letter to his friends on the outside, if he ever finished Fowler off himself. But if Neal were being true to himself, he'd find it better if he could get the bastard alone and confront him about it.

He wanted Fowler to give Neal a chance to let the bastard know of the ache in his chest and behind his eyes that Neal feels with every passing moment, knowing that he'll never look into Kate's matching baby-blue irises for the rest of eternity, never again visually trace her outline with lust as she saunters toward him, never smell the sweet scent of her favorite shampoo combined with her favorite coffee, nor feel her electric touch whether when she's planting a small kiss or something larger in a more intimate setting, nor hear her bubbling laughter that follows as she sways in mirth, the smile on her face more than enough to make him lightheaded even at the mere thought of it, even now, _especially_ now …

He wants Fowler to suffer. To suffer more than Kate did as she died, because he made a tragedy case out of Kate, and she was so much more while he is so much less. And a quick death won't be good enough for him.

Shaking his head, Neal took his mind out of his homicidal fantasy and focused back on his plan.

If the CIA found out you were Fulcrum, or aided them in any way, you were executed. Of course, the incidents were set up as accidents: car accidents, gas leaks, victims of serial killers, etc. Meaning it would be extremely dangerous to be involved in this, and it would put everyone else he cared about in danger, especially if they weren't informed. It was large risk to take, but also one with repercussions that Neal was willing to take on.

He couldn't tell Peter the truth yet, though. He might freak. Neal was only glad Peter had gotten around to trusting him after all this time.

He felt a pang of guilt at that thought. Okay, so maybe there was another reason for telling Peter it was the CIA, but to be fair, he's not even sure if it's an objectively _advantageous_ reason. To him personally, not the case.

If the CIA was called in, he may just get to talk to the real culprit of the crime. He knew precisely who had broken in; there was only one person in this world sans himself that he knew inside and out, all of the moves and thought processes.

And he thought he could just show up at Neal's doorstep? Neal chuckled sourly under his breath.

Neal was right about the CIA getting involved being 'not good', Peter thought. CIA involvement is never a good thing. Usually, when the CIA was required for a case, there was always at least one casualty, which lead to an investigation of the unit, which eventually lead to at least one firing of a good agent. Anything to show the public that they were doing _something_, even when they weren't doing anything at all. Peter scoffed at the indecency of it all, before turning his mindset back to the problem at hand.

Neal was lying. Chasing a man down for nine years taught you his quirks: when he was telling the truth, when he was lying, and most of the touchy subjects to avoid. The rarity of finding two of three of these to be accurate in this situation, Peter didn't voice anything. He didn't ignore it, but he didn't say anything, for which Neal was grateful.

Yes, Neal was definitely not good.

He barely heard Neal mutter as they stepped out of the elevator, "Especially now." Peter couldn't help but agree, despite the two of them obviously having differing trains of thought.

However, instead of moving to their own desks to do some more research while they waited for Hughes to get back, they were stopped by one of the maintenance ladies from the power division, a woman with skin like leather, a dense layer of makeup worn by someone who knows they have something not-so-beauteous to cover up, and sharpened, painted nails pointedly placed in a confrontational pose on her hips.

"Mr. Caffrey?" she asked in an irritated tone, continuing without any space for breath or response. "I will say this once. Either pick up your calls, or send them all to voicemail. But under _no_ circumstances are you to _rip_ the telephone cords _out of the wall._" She took a step closer, and Neal leaned backward slightly, but didn't dare take a step away."Whether it's a _hooker_ or an _estranged father_, _do _not_ rip out the phone cords._ Do I make myself_ clear?_" She crossed her arms and tilted her head, looking over the tops of her glasses to glare at him.

"Er … right. Sorry about that. Won't happen again," he replied rather sheepishly, his tense shoulders an apology in themselves as he cowered under the woman's dark stare. She gave a curt nod before setting off down the hallway, yelling at an irritated man walking in the opposite direction, who quickened his pace to avoid her.

Peter shot Neal a pointed look, and he rolled his eyes in response.

They went back in to find many agents around Neal's desk, listening to something. One of the various agents laughed, and said, "Huh. Kinda always wanted to throw a couple, but never tried. Y'know, with so many people yearning to punch him in the face, it's kind of surprising that Neal still has that straight-edge jawline."

A laugh from a different voice, a few more words that Peter couldn't make out, and the agents laughed as a whole this time. It took Peter a moment to realize it was a voice on the telephone, and another moment to realize he should be gauging Neal's reaction.

His shock was evident, along with things Peter identified as betrayal, anger, and dismay. He marched up to the group, propelling himself forward with his long legs, and shouting, "Hey!"

Both the room and the line went equally silent, before a cheerful voice said through the receiver, "Hey! Neal! Been a while, eh! Listen, I need a favor – "

"No," Neal cut him off, taking two fingers to press to his temples in annoyance. "You stop right there, and tell me what the _hell_ you think you're doing." He lowered his voice then, though his voice cut cleanly through the preceding silence. "And don't you _dare_ give me that 'I'm looking for Dad' BS."

He roughly ripped the phone from its base, glaring vehemently at everyone until they scattered with disappointed mutterings, and he collapsed in his chair, looking immensely tired.

And, as the consultant listened on to whoever was on the other side, he seemed to looked even more exhausted. The dark circles under his eyes were sharply accented by his pale complexion, which was also brought on by the contrast between it and his dark hair, now far from slick as Neal ran a hand through it. Peter vaguely wondered when he had lost track of the last time Neal had looked relatively healthy.

He sighed, and then said, "Look, I would love to, but I'm in the middle of a case, and –" he broke off, sinking further into his chair. "Yes, I remember. I know. I'm sorry. But I can't just – _what?_"

He jerked upright in his chair - with a rather reluctant motion - to lean over his desk with both elbows digging into the metal, and a look of disbelief crossed his face before he schooled his features once more. Another sigh, though this one held an ounce of affection and more exasperation than exhaustion, Peter noticed. Neal closed his eyes and rubbed his fingers against them, as if fighting off a headache.

"Yes, I'm fine. No, nothing happened." He went silent for a moment, gritting his teeth a second later. " … yeah."

Silence. A prolonged, tense silence, in which the redness around Neal's eyes that Peter had come to recognize on his bad days, when his walls were slightly weaker than normal, deepened slowly in color. Neal's face was flushing, and his eyes shined, but he simply pursed his lips and swallowed harshly, refusing to let a single tear fall.

"Just leave it alone, okay? I'm _fine_." Neal hissed sharply in frustrated exasperation, attracting unwanted attention once more. Slouching deliberately and holding the phone with his shoulder, he put his hands under his desk, fiddling with something underneath. Peter was certain Neal was just trying to keep his hands from shaking.

And then, miraculously, he took one or two breaths, and seemed to deflate, an exasperated, wonder-filled shake of his head the only indication that he was recovering from whatever had just set him off. Then, the lines on his face weakened, he blinked once, twice, and seemed to consider something.

Peter blinked, feeling rather whiplashed; he had never seen Neal … change like that. It was always gradual, whenever he put up a mask, insomuch that an outsider would never notice any difference until a few hours after they had parted ways. The abruptness of this change was startling.

"As much as I hate to admit it, I think you're right … Ha! Yeah, _right_. Yeah, I know which one you're talking about. Okay. See you later." Neal cut the line with a definite click of phone on receiver, relaxing back into his chair and breathing in deeply, closing his eyes and exhaling as soon as his back hit the chair. There was a pause, in which Peter struggled to think of what to say.

"Family troubles?" Peter he finally asked, sidling up to Neal in the nearest rolling chair he could find. Neal cracked one eye open to look at Peter.

"Yeah. How'd you know?" he responded with heavy sarcasm. He didn't even look surprised, Peter reflected. More resigned. He replied bluntly, "Well, the 'looking for Dad' part gave most of it away."

Neal sighed, shaking his head. "It's complicated. Shouldn't you be talking to Hughes?"

Peter raised his eyebrows and said, "He's not in yet." He was about to continue with, "You don't have any family on file," but was interrupted by Neal's sudden change in expression.

His eyebrows raised in slight amusement and his eyes much brighter than earlier, a smirk found its way onto Neal's face again as he looked at a point just above his shoulder. Peter just sighed, turning in his chair to face Hughes and standing with an attempt to look more professional. "Ah. Do you mind having a conference?"

Hughes raised an eyebrow and gave a quick nod. He glanced over at Neal - still with rather red rimmed eyes - and his resting frown deepened slightly.

"I suppose. Caffrey, _stay_." Hughes ordered, turning his back on the pair and walking up the stairs. Neal immediately sent Peter an offended expression, to which Peter responded with a small, mocking smile and a condescending, "Good dog."

He made a bold attempt to ruffle Neal's hair, but a frenzied swipe with both of Neal's' hands prevented it.

Hughes paused at the top of the stairs and raised an eyebrow. Peter nodded, and began to follow him up the stairs. Neal turned away, visibly swallowing, and Peter suddenly felt the need to send Neal a concerned glance. He got an eye roll in response to the gesture, so he figured Neal was okay.

For the moment.

* * *

Bryce Larkin was frustrated. The CIA was adamantly pestering him about bailing on his last mission, something or other, the Wendigo he had salted and burned a couple of hours ago had left behind a nasty scar and some head trauma that he would have had to visit medical for (not that he minded having another encounter with Jenny, the head nurse, a fabulous blonde who looked even more fabulous in a nurse outfit), he almost caught a lead on his father and ended up losing it because he couldn't keep his aliases straight in his head after the possible concussion, and his brother wasn't returning his 50-some phone calls.

You'd at least expect your brother to pick up the phone when you're being ambushed by Fulcrum agents in your own office building. But whatever. Bryce studiously ignored the fact that Neal couldn't possibly know that Bryce was being ambushed, and instead decided to chock up his brother's ignorance to his apparent inability to call Bryce, not even once.

I mean, it's not like Bryce wasn't going to kick Neal's ass the next time he saw him anyway, for not bothering to let him know that he got out of prison in a deal with the FBI. But the point still stands.

Roundhouse kicking an agent in the face, he cursed and hung up on yet another failed attempt at a call, and speed-dialed the same number, forcibly pushing both the call button and the actual phone backwards into someone's face. Hearing a satisfying crack as he probably shattered the man's nose with his knuckles, Bryce smirked momentarily before growling in frustration as the call went straight to voicemail, again.

Deciding that pent up anger was best put to use – especially in a situation that he was in – he smiled in a sadistic manner, taking a deep breath and relaxing his mind. Various memories of training flashed through his mind, and soon the rest of reality drifted out of his reach until he only held the mental presence to recognize himself and his enemy. His hands grew limp and the phone dropped from his grip as if nothing had been holding it in midair.

A feral growl tore from his mouth as an agent dove for his throat, and the primal instinct to protect the weaknesses of his body chimed in his mind. He launched into battle, unsheathing his trademark double khopeshes from his waist belt, each blade held in two soft yet experienced grips, Bryce's hands trembling only with sweet anticipation.

The CIA had prevented him from using his preferred weapons with every request he had put in; each and every entry had been denied. Not that he didn't bring them every once in awhile regardless, leaving them with any other undercover agent that stayed in the car. Its handle kept friction against a grip even with lax fingers, and its blade curved to form a hook-like feature, the edge sharp enough to slice through limbs smoothly, while the flat portion was dull enough to knock a grown man unconscious with little effort. Bryce bore them with angled, experienced precision, slicing them through the air in a silent presentation of a threat, which the agents surrounding him mocked with twinkling eyes and taunting smirks.

With a huff of a man confident that he was being underestimated, he leaped forward, every stomach-twisting thing that came to mind fueling his fire and building it as he ducked, blocked, swung, swiped, hit, punched, kicked, scratched, cracked, broke, and killed. _Mercy_ had no meaning, it was nothing but a word made of letters made of meanings that held no meaning at the moment, and _repercussions, reprimands, consequences_ \- they meant just as little. It was like taking a breath of cool air after lying in a stuffy container for years.

He didn't stop until every agent in the room, in the hall, on the floor, in the building was dead or paralyzed in some way. Cracking his neck to relieve tension, he kicked a man's limp arm off of his shoe and stepped around the corpses and mutilated bodies. The high receding, he felt his limbs grow heavier and heavier as he walked through the corpse fields on each building floor.

He was just grateful the demons had already killed the agents before possessing them.

* * *

It wasn't until later, when Bryce was finished cleaning out the crime scene, and his khopeshes were safe in the recesses of his emergency bag did he call his brother again.

_Ring…_

_Ring…_

_Ring…_

_We're sorry, the number you are trying to reach is unavailable at this time –_

He shut the phone with a frustrated scoff, shoving it heatedly in the seat next to him before taking out another cell from his glove box, and dialing the same number.

_Ring…_

_Ring…_

_Ring…_

A pause – then a hesitant, "_Hello?_"

"Oh, thank God. I thought no one was going to pick up. Who is this?" he grunted into the receiver, shifting the phone to his shoulder and holding it there by his ear. He took a glance at his watch as he fiddled with the wires beside and under the wheel, flinching slightly at a short spark, then felt the engine hum beneath him with triumph.

_"… Agent Kyle Desson. Who is _this_?_" a hesitant voice responded, and Bryce sighed. He was late.

"No one of importance to you. Where's Neal? He's not in jail again, is he?"

"_No. And if you want me to give him a message, I'm going to need a name._"

"Look, just give the phone to him the next time you see him, will you?" he responded, about to shut the phone with as much vehemence as last time. "Or tell him to pick up the damn phone."

"_He won't pick it up unless he knows who's on the other line." _Bryce bit back an irritated response along the lines of, "He'll refuse to pick up even harder if he knew who was on the other line." Nevertheless, the agent did have a point.

Bryce sighed. "Tell him his douche-bag brother wants to know if he's dead yet," Bryce replied, the smart-ass part of him not quite able to douse his heated anger. His knuckles clenched the wheel less tightly as he backed out of the parking space and out of the lot, onto the main road.

"_Wait. Caffrey's got a brother?_" Bryce blinked, mentally stumbled for a second, slightly put off by the mention of his mother's maiden name. In response, he chuckled softly.

"Twin_._ He hasn't mentioned me?" That's not hurtful at all. "Ooh, Neal, you're in for it now. And after everything I've taught you as well. Rule number three. Secrets can only be kept between two people when one of them's dead."

There was a slight pause, an exasperated sigh, and then a suspicious tone crept into the man's voice, "_A twin? Great. There's two of him. Why aren't you on file?"_

"Two of him? Two of _me_, more like. Only difference is, I actually know how to fight."

There was laughter from the other end, and Bryce frowned, taking a sharp turn that was most definitely not legal in this state.

_"You're right about that. Dude can barely handle a slap. Though if you ask me, his ego's much more fragile." _There was laughter on the other line, and a slight movement, as if that last part hadn't been directed at Bryce.

Bryce chuckled along, replying with a light, "Don't have to tell me that. Actually, now that you mention it, he always was kind of weak in the face. Should've known, with the number of times Kate slapped him."

An astonished silence, then, "_ … She would hit him?"_ Surprise, rolling off of his voice in waves.

"Hard. After finding out the reasons, even threw in a few suckers of my own. Both his face and my hand bruised pretty bad first time around."

_"Huh. Kinda always wanted to throw a couple, but never tried. With so many people yearning to punch him in the face, it's kind of surprising that Neal still has that straight-edge jawline._"

"Mm, you should've seen him at fourteen. Geeky, gangly, and all disproportionate 'round the face. Took him more than a couple of years to grow into that jawline."

There was laughter on the other line, and Bryce put in a few chuckles himself. He remembered that day. Neal had actually just met Kate, and made his attempt at 'smooth flirting'. Bryce didn't actually hit him, but instead offered the ice pack when Kate landed quite a few on him.

"_Hey!_" A shout flew from the other line, and Bryce flinched, pulling the phone away from his ear for a second. He put it back and smiled at the familiar voice, taking a smooth turn and pulling up at his destination, leaving the engine to idle as he reclined in the seat, needing all of his attention for the conversation.

"Hey! Neal! Been a while, eh! Listen, I need a favor – " he started happily, fully intending to rant on all of their issues outside of Neal's work, but his brother cut him off.

"_No, you stop right there, and tell me what the _hell_ you think you're doing. And don't you _dare_ give me that 'I'm looking for Dad' BS._" He could almost hear his brother's glare over the phone. He paused to wait until the shuffling that clearly indicated the phone being picked up privately ended. He took a deep breath and started again, his voice much more somber and serious.

"Alright, alright, chill. I'm on a hunt. Well, _was_ on a hunt. Demons took over entire building, had to wipe it. And … I was wondering, since you're in New York, and I'm in New York, and you're out of jail, you might want to – " He was cut off once again by a drawn out sigh and a few beats of silence following it. His face falling despite knowing Neal couldn't see it, Bryce almost heaved a sigh of his own.

"_Look, I would love to, but I'm in the middle of a case, and –_"

Bryce cut in this time, his anger twitching as he was reminded of a similar argument a few months back.

"C'mon, dude. We can't always play by your schedule. Besides, you owe me one. I'm entitled to my end of our deal," Bryce said, getting slightly irritated at his brother. It's not every day you hear from your brother when he travels all across the country. It had absolutely nothing to do with the stinging scar from that particular past event. The argument and subsequent separation had been exactly that – an argument. And a parting of the ways. No hard feelings, except for, well, all of them.

"_Yes, I remember. I know. I'm sorry. But I can't just – what?_"

Bryce sighed, repeating what he had been saying as he had spoken over his younger brother. "I said, you can _just do_ anything. It's all a matter of what you _want_ to do." There was a moment of silence, which Bryce immediately filled with, " … No, it's not just the case, is it? Something's wrong, isn't it? You're okay, right?" He suddenly berated himself for not asking that first, wondering where the caring older brother had gone from his persona. His spine turned ramrod straight, and he tensed up, ready to hurry back to wherever the _fuck_ his brother was, because if he was trouble it was all his fault, because he didn't look over his little brother, he broke his promise to his now estranged father –

"_Yes, I'm fine. No, nothing happened,_" Neal replied, though the unusual hitch in his voice and the shuffle as the phone moved suggested otherwise. His heart wrenched as he imagined his little brother resisting the urge to hang up if not to avoid a stressed situation then to annoy his brother out of his plan anyway. The anger buried inside of him reared, and Bryce couldn't help the protective fury that blurted from his lips in his frustration.

"Neal, I told you over and over to _call me_ if something went wrong. Tell me _now_: what is it?" There was a moment of silence, and Bryce cringed, wondering if he had just ended up pushing his brother further away. He softened his voice, hoping for a more compromising side of the conversation. "Look, Neal. I know, you probably don't want to talk about it, but I'm your brother. I'm here to be here for you. … right?"

"_… yeah_." Neal replied sullenly, and Bryce could hear the exhaustion in his voice. A wave of guilt threatened to crash into him, but Bryce pushed it down expertly.

He sighed. "Alright. Thank you. What happened?" There was another of those beats of silence, and Bryce was itching to say something to cover it, now. "Neal, I swear, you don't have to keep anything from me. I'm here for you. _Please_." Still only hearing silence, Bryce took to desperately grasping at straws to try and find it so Neal didn't have to say it out loud.

"Okay. You wanna play a guessing game. Fine, then. I can do that. It wasn't Moz, right?" Finding no answer once more, he continued his blind guessing. "Peter's okay … Jones is good, and Diana's fine. Which only leaves … Kate. Neal?" Feeling the dread creep up and settle in his stomach like a lead ball at the deep hitch in his brother's breathing, Bryce choked out, "Kate … _Kate's okay, right?_"

He heard a sharp inhale coming hand in hand with a distinct, pointed lack of response, and the dread that was slowly crawling upward threatened to swallow Bryce, consume him until there was just a black hole of grief. He couldn't imagine how Neal was feeling, as he was the one who was in love with her.

Bryce had had Chuck as a friend at Stanford, and Sarah at his time in the CIA. He was never really alone, unless you included missions, but Sarah was alone on her own missions, too. So that didn't count. Bryce and Neal had separated when Bryce had retreated to Stanford, and Neal pursued his excellent skills in the scams their father had taught them before they had been whisked into WitSec. It had eventually built until he was a full con man, breaking out hundreds and sometimes thousands in cash doing scams and missions not unlike Bryce's in the CIA. All Bryce knew was that Neal was flying completely solo for a few years before finally meeting Moz, and, eventually, Kate.

Kate had been the one connection between the brothers through the CIA and her own cons with Neal. She was assigned by the CIA to keep an eye on him, but eventually she fell in love, just as he had, and she had refused to leave her post next to him. He was pretty angry when he found that she had been lying about the CIA, but warmed up to the idea after hearing an apology of Bryce's through Kate.

And now, something was wrong with Kate. And anything that went wrong with Kate, Bryce knew Neal would be breaking apart at the seams – Kate had been the one to pull all of his pieces back together and hold them there before he could do it himself. And he had done the same for her spy life. Whatever had happened to her, it was bad. Neal wouldn't be shutting down like this if it wasn't disastrous.

Feeling his heart rate and his breathing accelerate, Bryce called a futile attempt to calm himself down before a sharp, "_Just leave it alone, okay? I'm fine."_ was heard over the phone.

Refusing to go anywhere near the stages of grieving himself, Bryce heard the phone shuffle, and knew automatically that Neal was finding something to do with his hands so they wouldn't shake. His heart twisted at the implications – Neal's hands only vibrated when a dire situation was resolved, when someone he knew was in danger, or something very, very bad had happened. It was an action that put Bryce off his game and worried him more than he would like to admit. He quickly changed the subject, getting an idea and proposing it to the best of his abilities.

"Okay, look. I'm in New York, you're in New York. How about this. Instead of you and me hunting together, we … switch places? Huh? I've got a demon ring to keep an eye on, but I've also got a ghost hunt not too far from here. I'm assuming you've got something demonic over there, seeing as it _is _New York. So … we just switch places for a while. I could use the break, and you could use the hunt as … stress relief. It can work. It _will_ work."

He pushed a note of assurance into his tone, and he knew before he even heard the laugh from the other side, that he had convinced his brother. "You can't just try to compartmentalize things like this, Neal, no matter how good you are at it. I'm not saying you need to get pissed, but don't bottle everything up inside. Got it?"

Silence.

"Neal?"

" … _As much as I hate to admit it, I think you're right …_"

"Aw, you know my plans are the best. They always work out great," Bryce said with a knowing smile he knew that Neal would sense over the phone.

"_Ha! You wish._"

"Alright. Meet me tomorrow at 0400 by that old motel just 'round the corner - y'know the one with the - "

He could hear Neal's restrained sigh as he replied, "_Yeah, I know which one you're talking about. Okay. Sure. See you later._" The line clicked, and Bryce heaved an exasperated sigh.

Honestly, did Neal think Bryce wouldn't have checked up on his brother the moment he came back onto the radar? And also when he was _off_ of the radar, for that matter?

Feeling a small smile creep up on his face, Bryce Larkin turned the engine off and opened the car door, looking up at the motel he was going to be staying in for the foreseeable future.

This was going to be an interesting week.

* * *

**Hope you enjoyed, reviews would be much appreciated, and feel free to PM me about questions, notes, etc.**

**~IsomorphicTARDIS**

_**Revised 10/10/15**_


	2. Chapter 2

**Ah, more tomatoes? Darn, they're my least favorite fruit! Or ... vegetable. Whatever, you know what I mean! If you're reading this, I revised again. And I am deeply sorry. (But I don't regret it. Not really.) Don't worry, though, all I've added is a bit of description, and maybe a little scene description clarification to help you visualize. Hope you like!**

**For those of you that didn't read the first version, that's alright! I hope you read this one and find it nice. And the plot thickens! R&amp;R!**

**And now, without further adieu, Chapter 2!**

* * *

"Bryce!" Neal called into the darkness surrounding him, despite the New York lights shining as bright as ever in the relative distance. The ex-conman figured it was the sheer tense feeling in the air that darkened the surrounding areas, not the lack of light.

"Neal!" Bryce shouted back, running up to a figure in the night, standing below a single lamppost with an ominous flickering light. An identical smile creased identical faces, and both squeezed a little too hard in their sentimental embrace, until Bryce leaned back to hold Neal at arms length, looking his little brother over.

"For a moment there, I thought you were going to bail on me," Neal said, and Bryce huffed a laugh.

"I was thinking the same about you. Dearly hoping I wasn't right."

He paused for a moment, glancing up in annoyance at the street light flickering above them. "That's ridiculously irritating," Bryce muttered, and Neal laughed.

"I thought it was theatrically suspenseful," he said rather defensively, staring up at the light with a wide smile.

The sides of Neal's eyes crinkled, and Bryce finally saw the genuine happiness in his smile and the light dancing in his brother's eyes. He remembered back when he had seen the same look on his face – the day he met Kate. He smiled bitterly as he reminisced of a better time and place, now in the past.

"So? You bring it?" Neal said, breaking Bryce out of his stupor. He smiled, holding up a suitcase that currently held various weapons, differing in size, shape, and target. A slip of a paper stuck out of the top, and Neal took it out, crumpling it in his hand as he lifted the suitcase from his brother's hands. Holding up his own, much lighter, suitcase, Neal passed it over, and scanned the piece of paper.

"A ghost hunt … corpse buried somewhere in North City Cemetery … a _hunter?_" He exclaimed, looking up with a somewhat impressed face, as the other was scanning Neal's paper as well. Their eyes locked, and Neal suddenly felt very small, disbelief covering his emotions and creasing his face. "It wasn't … Wes?" was all he said, his shoulders hunching as he saw his brother's downcast expression.

It's not like a good hunter friend's death was uncommon – in fact, it happened every other month. They had stopped wondering if they were going to have any long term friends after almost everyone they had come in contact with suddenly dropped dead. Deaths just weren't that rare. However, a hunter dying and then coming back as a spirit? Kind of makes hunting all of your life redundant if you become a supernatural creature when you die.

Before, Neal had wondered why Bryce wouldn't have already salted, oiled, and burned the ghost's corpse, but now he understood. He hadn't really known Wesley that well – just a man who managed to help out on a hunt. To be honest, Neal didn't like him one bit. But he new that Bryce had liked him – a lot, considering how much Bryce had leaned from the guy. And now he was dead. Neal knew Bryce wouldn't be able to do it. He'd probably try to delay getting rid of him – could probably state the case that he hadn't gone vengeful. Then Neal would add "yet," to that argument, and it would get way too heated, leaving another broken bridge between the siblings, eventually tearing both apart until they made it up months later. Mentally giving his brother a pat on the back, he settled for a soft hand on his shoulder. It might not be the best idea, but it had to be done, and Neal would always take a chance to take some weight off of his brother's shoulders.

Bryce, however thought it a spectacularly good idea to give his brother this case – he was too emotionally involved, and his brother needed to de-stress. It was bad enough that his love was dead – but up in flames, leaving no body to even burn? That was cruel. Therefore, Bryce hoped it would be quite liberating for Neal to burn _something_ in _place_ of Kate, because, if anything, he needed closure.

Switching topics to follow up to safer waters, Bryce looked down at Neal's case sheet and remarked, "Dude, stolen engagement ring? That's gotta _suck _for the engagement."

Neal actually snickered, settling into his trademark smirk and replying with a condescending glance into his brother's eyes, "That's what I said. You're lagging a bit there, brother."

"Oh, shut up," Bryce quipped, pretending to look back down at the sheet as he glanced up at Neal's face, which looked a considerable amount of shades lighter at the normal banter.

"So, are you ready? We've gotta do this right the first time, or they'll be onto us. Got it?" Neal said, suddenly serious. Bryce replied with a serious nod, and a rough imitation of Neal's previous smirk.

"Clear as mud. Now let's get this sinking weight off your ankle."

* * *

The FBI was odd.

That was Bryce's first thought as he stepped through the elevator the next morning, walking through the glass doors and sitting down at his twin's desk. God, his brother was such a neat freak.

Files and folders were spread in a scattered yet orderly manner all over the desk, stacked on top of each other or laying side-by-side, while various writing utensils were strewn all around, inside cups and drawers that held more random knick-knacks. Bryce felt a twinge of betrayal at the blatant lack of his photograph on the desk – Bryce had one on his desk in his office. Or, well, he did, before the Fulcrum demons came through for a visit. But, then again, having a picture of what others would only see as yourself would come off as considerably narcissistic. Feeling the resentment float away to be replaced by curiosity, Bryce peeked into the drawers, filled with a rubber band ball, a felt-tip pen, and other things presumably things valuable only to Neal.

Scratch that, valuable to _anybody_, Bryce corrected himself, quickly pushing closed the drawer containing an antique English millefiori inkwell and stopper. _Once you steal one thing, there's no going back. Kind of like hunting, then. Proud of you for not falling completely out of the business, little bro._

Cutting that thought off, Bryce glanced up and saw Burke looking down at him. He had never really liked Peter; he was FBI, and Bryce was CIA. There was bound to be some kind of resentment between the two. A little of that had healed as he saw how much Peter and Neal took care of each other, but the residual bitterness stuck. He broke eye contact.

_Neal's having trouble, right?_ Bryce thought. _We'll give him trouble, then._ With an internal smirk, Bryce shoved his hands under the desk and did his best impression of his brother under stress. Seeing Neal in this position at months at a time when he was going to try to tell the family about going into the crime life when they were younger made it foolishly easy to recreate.

Closing his eyes and concentrating, Bryce turned his mind toward the case they were working on at the time, unable to keep his mind off of the case by his side. He hauled the suitcase up onto the desk, and pulled out a packet from one of the outside pockets.

Instead of skimming the words this time, he read carefully, absorbing each detail and every sentence to figure out what exactly they were dealing with. He was just reading an emphasis of dealing with Peter when something else caught his eye.

Reaching into the suitcase, he brought out a bag labeled '6' and layered with yellow dust. Eyes widening, he quickly skipped to page 6 of the packet and pieced the sentences together. Sulfur at a crime scene?

Definitely not good.

* * *

Neal sighed. He walked right into the motel he had only months before, and grimaced as the man at the desk yelled, "Hey, Snake Eyes! You're back!" Giving a strained smile and wave, he continued to the staircase, just managing to hold his breath until the top.

He didn't know what someone had done on those stairs, but whatever it was left a stench that probably wouldn't go away for years. Deciding not to dwell on the possibilities, Neal opened his brother's suitcase and pulled out a pair of keys, smirking to himself as he recognized the keychain on it – a laser pen, that could probably cut through thousands of types of metals.

_Once a spy, always a spy, I guess. _Neal thought, turning the key in the room's lock. _Some things never change._

Jumping as he heard a clatter in the bathroom, he automatically dived into his fighting stance, feet shoulder width apart and hands spread, ready to grab any sort of item to attack someone with. He relaxed with an exasperated sigh as Jo Harvelle trotted out of the bathroom with something akin to disgust on her face.

"God, do you usually stay in places this _disgusting?_" she remarked, wiping something brown and flaky on her jeans, and proceeding to stare at it in repulsion. Neal smirked.

"Not usually. The FBI can be very generous to ex-convicts," he said, finding a great deal of satisfaction when she whipped around and did a double take, inspecting him closely and saying, "Neal! What are you doing here?"

"Thanks, Jo," he replied with a heavy dose of sarcasm, and she immediately added, "You know that's not what I meant. I mean, where's Bryce?"

Neal, with his smirk still intact, said, "He's … occupied. Where's your mother?" He looked around, and his eyes landed on the light under the door in the bathroom, where a voice echoed through the room with a lilt of underlying threats.

"Don't even think about it, son," Ellen Harvelle said with her own smirk as she stepped out of the bathroom, a similar look of disgust on her face as was just on her daughter's a minute ago. It hardened and then softened as she took a look at Neal. He smiled and gave her a tight hug, turning and doing the same for Jo after a moment.

"So, how's this brother of yours 'occupied'? He's not …" she trailed off, the repulsed look overcoming her features once more.

Neal huffed a laugh at that, briefly reflecting that that might've been his first genuine laugh since Kate … "No, he's not occupied like that, thank God. He's over at the FBI office, working another case."

One of Ellen's eyebrows rose while Jo just looked unimpressed, the tone of her next words betraying her true reaction. "You switched places with him, didn't you?"

Neal gave another smirk, and Ellen cuffed him on the back of the head this time. He whined in protest, rubbing the sore spot but cutting off as she spoke. "You idiot! What happens if you get caught?"

Neal straightened up at the question, and he responded, "It'll be okay. We won't get caught. Bryce is too good for that." He moved over to the fridge, grabbing an ice cold beer and setting the suitcase down on the coffee table. "And, besides, if we do get caught, the CIA will take care of it. They always do when it comes to Bryce."

"Yeah," Jo conceded. "He may be an annoying son of a bitch, but he does the job right." Neal leaned against the couch, pointing an accusing finger at Jo.

"Hey now, watch yourself. That's my mother you're talking about," he said, and the women chuckled, inviting themselves to the open fridge and two already opened beers. Neal laughed. He guessed they had already been inside today if not yesterday sometime.

Neal took a look around the motel room in the few moments of silence that passed. The wallpaper was peeling off of the moldy wall beneath, the bed was messily made, and – was that blood? – there was some odd red substance staining one of the couches.

And then his gaze wandered over to the Harvelle's. The two women in Bryce and Neal's life that had always stayed by their side. They had met back when their father had been taken away, Jo's father apparently having something to do with them being transferred into WitSec. He blinked as he was thrown back into the memory, smiling wistfully as he gazed into space, the bottom of the beer bottle acting as it in reality.

_"By, I don't wanna go," A younger Neal whined, pulling on his older brother's shirt sleeve. The young Bryce looked down at Neal, his eyes crinkling at the nickname. Neal hadn't been able to say Bryce, so all he said was a choppy abbreviation. Not that Bryce minded it, however._

_"I know, I know," Bryce said, kneeling down to face his brother and meet his eyes. "But look, we've got to go. Do you understand? Ellen and Mom can take care of us, okay?" He paused, biting his lip. "Do you trust me?"_

_Neal's eyes shined with unshed tears, and a little bit of Bryce broke inside, guilt flooding him as Neal slowly nodded his head. Taking his little brother's hand, Bryce stood, looking up at Ellen and nodding._

_She nodded back, wiping the tear streaks from her cheeks as she led them to the car's backseat – right into their grieving mother's lap. They were just kids. Only kids._

Snapping back into reality from the old memory, Neal stumbled, mentally backtracking and trying to process what Ellen had just said. He shook his head free of the cobwebs and the unbidden memories, smiling as he said, "Sorry. Just caught up in an old memory. Yeah, I've got a small ghost problem a few towns over. Think you can handle the demon research without me?"

Ellen chuckled, leading them all over to the old windows laptop sitting on the dining table and whirring irritatingly. Neal missed the laptop he used back at June's apartment.

"I think we'll manage just fine, boy. Now go ahead – get a head start. The sooner you finish that job, the sooner we can get around to solving this demon problem. _Together_."

Neal smiled, nodding his head. "Got it. See you all later, then."

Jo laughed, calling back to him as he strode toward the door, "You taking the Taurus?"

"What?" Neal replied, giving a sarcastic smile as he added in a mock-Bryce tone, "I would _never_ take a government supplied car and use it for my own purposes."

They all huffed a laugh as Jo gave her own, "Yeah right," and then, "Be careful."

"Ha! Careful's my middle name!" Neal said, turning back and spreading his arms wide.

"Yeah, and mine's String Cheese," Ellen muttered, eliciting one last bought of laughter before Neal walked out, his laugh becoming more bitter with each step.

He hoped they would survive this.

* * *

"You find something?" Burke asked, coming up to Neal's desk and leaning over the front to peer at the packet Bryce held in his hands. He moved his hands away quickly, stuffing everything back into his suitcase while hastily pasting a frustrated look on his face.

"Other than something suspiciously close to Sulfur, no," Bryce replied, leaning back in his chair, and enjoying it more than he would care to admit when it swiveled smoothly.

"Sulfur?" Burke said, and Bryce resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Did he stutter?

"Yes," he said out loud. "Check with Diana, it's definitely Sulfur."

Burke closed his eyes, giving a small smile as he said, "You know what, I _don't_ actually want to know how you know that." He straightened, catching sight of Diana and asking her as she approached, "Sulfur?"

Surprise covered her face for a moment, before she said, "How would _he_ know?" Bryce chuckled, saying, "Peter here said he didn't want to know. But, if you're willing to listen … see, it all started when I was only – "

"Okay, hotshot, I regret asking already. Happy?" Bryce gave his best impression of his brother's trademark smirk.

"Very, thanks for asking. You find out anything else?" Bryce leapt up from where he had been spinning around in his chair, and leaned around Diana's shoulder to see the contents of the folder she was holding open. She shied away from him, closing the folder and saying, "Patience, Neal. You'll get yours soon enough."

Bryce rolled his eyes, gesturing for her to hurry up. She scoffed, obviously taking her time in opening the folder and finding her place to start. Bryce paced, bobbing up and down and tapping his foot impatiently.

Finally, she found her spot. "So, a bunch of Sulfur was found at the crime scene, couple of footprints belonging to a common brand of boot, size 10, so average male foot size. It could be anyone." She looked up, blinking in the lingering pause before saying, "But, I did get this." She pulled out a sheet of paper with odd red writing on it, and passed it to Bryce. He took a look at it and internally cursed. A lot.

He resisted the urge to crumple the paper up, and instead narrowed his face into a disgusted sneer. The others looked at him curiously, and he said tightly, "I know who it was."

Burke quickly stole the paper from his hands, and Bryce was glad he could finally clench his fists without contaminating evidence. Meanwhile, Burke's brow just lowered in confusion. "I don't understand. Who is it?"

Bryce shook his head, waving his hand and saying nothing. Burke looked down at the note and began to read out loud.

"'If you've gotten this, it means that you know who I am. Congratulations. I'm really glad you were able to figure it out. Though, I guess the Sulfur was a bit of a giveaway. Good thing you fell for it.

"'So, judging by what has to be a nasty expression on your face right now, I'll assume you know what has to happen. If it's any consolation, I'm sorry. Yes, we're dragging you back into this, but your expertise is needed. See you soon, Mr. Larkin.'"

Burke raised his eyebrows, and said, "Mr. Larkin? You know him?" Bryce huffed a dry laugh. "Yeah, we're pretty close. But that's not who wrote this."

Diana heaved an exasperated sigh, saying, "Then who did?"

Bryce's face grew grim, and he sighed as well, though his was lighter and more tired. "This is a letter addressed _to_ a Mr. Larkin, not a letter _from_ Mr. Larkin." He paused, closing his eyes and applying pressure to his temples to ward off the incoming headache.

"It's from the CIA."

_Fulcrum, to be more specific._

* * *

Neal was going to _kill_ Bryce the next time he saw him.

Cursing his bad luck, and then cursing his brother's antics instead, he walked over to the sidewalk and began his long trek to headquarters, seething and boiling.

Bryce had taken the Taurus.

Bryce had better be hiding, right about now.

Bryce was dead – will be beyond that, once Neal gets his hands on him.

He leapt over another metal fence, ignoring the appalled looks passerby shot him. He glared at absolutely nothing, stomping off in the general direction of twelve blocks away, where the Taurus was currently waiting.

He was only about halfway there when he caught sight of a familiar face glancing around warily and hurrying down the sidewalk. Running so that he was only a few paces behind him, Neal yelled, "Agent Crowley! What are you doing out here?" The agent stopped, and Neal caught all the way up to him. They began walking together, but Neal didn't miss the halfway dirty looks he was sent by the agent.

"Shouldn't you be doing paperwork or something, Mr. Caffrey?" Agent Crowley asked after a moment, his tone making Neal wonder if it was possible to sound annoyed and pleased to see someone at the same time. He responded with a polite, "Probably."

Glancing at the agent's unimpressed expression, Neal said, "So where are you headed?" Crowley gave an impatient sigh, but said, "back to headquarters." He looked over at Neal with a fake curious and hopeful expression, continuing in a patronizing way, "You wouldn't happen to know the way, would you?"

_Well._

"Why, I think I might in fact know the way, my friend. I'm going in the same direction. I've got to give an _idiot_ a piece of my mind," Neal seethed, turning a glare to the concrete sidewalk. Crowley looked up at that, and Neal couldn't help but smirk at the twinkle in his eye once he looked up. Neal leaned in closer. "Know any good ways to get back at a person who made you walk over ten blocks?"

Crowley smiled, shrugged, and thought for a moment before he said, "Steal their shoes. All of them." Neal looked over, surprised. "Hm. Socks too?" Crowley looked thoughtful for a moment, and then asked, "How much do your brother's feet stink?" _Way to be subtle._

Neal choked on the laugh on midway up his throat. He whirled around to completely face Crowley, coming to an abrupt halt, and catching up to him when the agent kept going. "Brother?" he said weakly, and Crowley shot him a look that clearly said, "Do I look like an idiot to you?" Neal swallowed, turning to jog backwards and face the agent.

"You can't tell _anyone_, got it?" he said shakily, stepping in front of Crowley to halt him in his tracks. The agent just rolled his eyes, saying, "Well of course not. Do you think I want to get fired for a simple swap of staff?" Neal considered this, tilting his head as he saw his point, "But, if you _did_ figure it out … how?"

Crowley sighed again, giving Neal an incredulous expression. "Seriously? In case you haven't noticed, your eye color is strikingly different to your brother's." _Oh._

Neal growled in frustration, looking at Crowley with something akin to suspicion. "Christo," he muttered under his breath, a gradual intake of breath the only consolation that he hadn't seen anything. Neal wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry.

If Crowley could figure it out that soon, who knows how long it will take Peter? Unless … yes, that might work. He walked forward with a purpose, turning the couple of more blocks until they reached the building, and nodding to Crowley as they parted ways, the agent heading into the building while Neal stayed behind to put a note on the sign where the Taurus was parked.

He opened the car door with nothing more than a flick of his wrist and two sticks of metal, and sat comfortably in the front seat, embracing the purr of the engine as he turned it on and pulled down the window, flooring the gas pedal to curve into a distinct lack of traffic this late in the day. He laughed at the wind in his face as he drove off, imagining the scandalized expression on his brother's face.

* * *

**Ah, review response time! **

**Quinis: Aw, thanks! I've read a bunch of your works, and coming from you, that means a lot!**

**Fiona12690: Still trying to write; getting back in the groove now! Expect another chapter soon!**

**Guest: I'll try! ;)**

**Inkling No. 3: Er, uh, heh, WOW. I ... don't really know what to say to this, other than ... thank you? I feel like that's not enough. Thank you eternally for spending the time to write that, thanks for posing all of the questions I have trouble keeping straight yet know I have to answer - it gets really crowded in my mind when I try to write this. It's such a big plot! As to your questions of who can be in here, I've got a list. Cas, Crowley, Chuck, Sarah, Shaw, Casey, Morgan, Mozzie, Elizabeth, Lillith, (maybe) Keller, and (definitely) Lucifer. Oh, and Azazel will have a major role, too. So, I'm glad you enjoyed it so far, and thanks once again!**

**Procrastination Is My Game: First off, love the name. Second, I hope you'll read more soon. Working on the fourth chapter now, so the suspense should be building!**

**EvE79: Heh, heh. *rubs back of neck nervously* Yeah, sorry about that. Coming right up, promise!**

**LaLaLAnd: I know! The, to be blunt, appalling lack of fics out there is astonishing. Well-written, I can't promise on my part, but I'll try.**

**Anah: Ah, unexpected is what I aim for. Great that you love Ellen and Jo, they'll be back soon, and hopefully I can keep my hands away from killing them off for now.**

**Mythologirly: Hm. That's a lot of 'please'es. Sure I'll update, why not? Just gimme a few hours to write, revise, re-revise, write more, then re-re-revise, and I'll post it. Hopefully soon. Maybe. Rereading that now, it doesn't seem very reassuring, does it? Ah, well, it's coming already, so don't worry.**

**Please Review - it's incredibly heart-warming to read everything you guys have to say. See you next time!**

**~IsomorphicTARDIS**

_**Revised Jan 2.**_


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Hey, how y'all doing? I** **just got back from New York, where we got multiple stares because my mother was being pure tourist material. Whatever. She's okay, at times. Anyway, celebrate everybody, the writers block has lifted! WOOOOOOOOT! Yeah, this next chapter is 7,588 words to make up for it. Hope it's okay, as I didn't have much time/focus to revise it pretty well. Meh, I'll do it later. Enjoy!** **Oh, and, by the way, I don't own NCIS. I got bored and wrote in a random scene. You'll see it. If you don't watch NCIS, that's okay, the thing is explained.**

**R&amp;R!**

* * *

Okay, so he probably deserved the comeback of Neal stealing the car while Bryce was caught up in his own affairs, but whatever. He didn't have to leave a note with a big fat giveaway of their mission lying around.

Burke followed him outside, Diana vaguely trailing, as he walked none-too-slow to where he had parked the Taurus. Sometimes, Bryce just wanted to punch his brother into oblivion.

This time warranted a slap, at least.

Bryce picked up the fluttering note from the ground, where it had been pinned under a rock posing as a shabby paperweight. A small smile crept up onto his face as he remembered the last time he had slapped Neal. A hand creeped up to cover the phantom pain as he felt Neal's retaliation smack echo back through the years.

_Bryce clenched his teeth, staggering backwards from the well timed sucker punch Neal had given him. Ignoring the sore spot where a bruise was sure to form later, the older brother just smirked, suddenly pitching forward as the palm of his right hand connected with his brother's cheek, creating a resounding smack._

_ They both froze, Neal's mouth agape as he rubbed the irritated skin. He growled, and brought his hand back, which Bryce braced himself for. However, Bryce blocked for a punch instead of a backhand and felt it full on when Neal's knuckles hit his face with an even louder crack. Or maybe it was just the ringing in Bryce's ears that made it louder. Whatever._

_ "Dude, that actually hurt," Bryce complained as the two boys – more like men now, anyway – regained their circling motion, each waiting for the other to strike first. Neal shrugged, apparently taking this sparring session harder than usual as he ducked from Bryce's sloppy left hook, sending his leg under to sweep Bryce's out from under him, sending the bigger brother sprawling to the ground. Before his back connected, however, an arm snapped out to grab his and he was pulled vertical once more. _

_ Neal's mistake._

_ Soon after Neal had straightened from spare momentum, Bryce sent a knee pushing upward, right into the other man's gut. As the younger man bent over to lessen the blow, Bryce's head slammed into his, and Neal didn't even realize he was falling until he was turned, stomach taking the brunt of the fall as Bryce pushed it forward and held his younger brother's arm behind his back in a very uncomfortable position._

_ Neal sighed, tapping out and rolling his shoulders as Bryce helped him up._

_ "You're getting better, bro," Bryce told him, slapping him on the back before taking the few steps to the porch fridge, helping himself and Neal to two ice-cold cokes. Neal glared at him, pausing the conversation as he took a sip of the refreshing liquid._

_ "Yeah. Few more weeks and I could take up your job," he responded, noting Bryce's raised eyebrow with an amused smirk._

_ "Yeah, right," Bryce retorted, "I'd like to see you take on a spy job."_

_ Neal's face darkened, but Bryce's held no sympathy as he said, "I'm still going, man. There's no stopping me." Neal smirked again, remaining suspiciously silent. "Y'know, if you keep doing that, your mouth with get stuck like that," Bryce finally said to fill the silence. Neal laughed._

_ "Kind of like if you keep talking, your ego won't wither at all?" Neal said in a mock innocent tone. Bryce hit him with his now empty soda can. Neal ducked, looked back at the can, and said, "Now, now, what would the CIA say if they saw that? After all, no one likes a litter-bug – " Neal's sentence was interrupted by a hard smack on the back of his head._

_ "Shut up, you little Shit."_

_ "Right back at you, you bigger Shit."_

Bryce was snapped out of his reverie by a honking car horn, the owner clearly trying to find a suitable parking space before it was taken. Bryce waved it off with an annoyed gesture and moved onto the sidewalk, stuffing the note in his pocket as he roamed the street, more wandering than actually going somewhere.

He passed a few corners and dove through a couple of alleys until he was absolutely sure that no one was following him anymore. He glanced at the area around him, catching sight of a few targets, one holding his attention longer than the rest.

He crept up to the beaten, old Ford F250, probably from the eighties and not used that much, going by the almost clean interior and barely dirty exterior. Despite the cleanliness, however, the scratches, dents, and other imperfections told Bryce exactly what he needed to know – this car was safe for the taking.

He took out a key ring – one Ellen had given him before he began hunting once more – and searched for the right key, finally finding it. He pulled apart the two edges of the key and shoved them into the car door's lock, twisting his wrist and pickpocketing the door quite easily. Once inside, he hotwired it, making sure that no one was watching as he drove away with the snigger of an old engine and creaking of rusted metal.

He smiled into the wind, thinking just how hard that was before realizing – and promptly ignoring – the fact that he had stolen the Taurus in the first place. It didn't matter now.

He had a date with the CIA in a few hours.

* * *

Neal was having a much harder time where he was.

Despite Bryce having done all of the research to confirm it was, in fact, the hunter that was the ghost, he hadn't done anything that would lead Neal to find where the poor guy was buried. Or, if he was even buried at all. In short, Neal had no idea where to look next, and was therefore stuck in an old police station, reading musty old books telling him where most of the bodies were buried, and all of the new deaths in the area.

Why couldn't they use computers, like normal people in the 21st century?

He wondered this for about three seconds before taking in the general appearance of the town through a grimy window, after which he began to wonder why this town seemed to be stuck in the 60's. He ended his drifting train of thought there.

Opening the dusty, leather bound log book for any recent deaths in the area, Neal briefly entertained the thought of beating his head on the table. They had to be kidding. He was afraid he was going to hit somebody if they weren't.

The book was written by a nine-year-old.

Or, at least, that's what it looked like, as the author had obviously attempted to write the entire thing in cursive. Emphasis on the 'attempted'. At best, Neal knew it would take him about five hours to decode the whole thing. Thankfully, he only needed the last few deaths, and any and all contact numbers and/or addresses. He slipped out a few sheets of paper and a pencil from his suitcase, getting to work.

It was only about five minutes in when he noticed him.

A man, looking to be about five feet tall with a suit and trench coat, was watching him like a hawk from the other side of the room, icy blue stare piercing through his own gaze, and not shifting or wavering for one moment. The guy didn't even blink.

Slightly disconcerted, Neal turned his back to him, memorizing the guy's features and odd clothing even as he felt the man's eyes on his back. There was no way he wasn't going to tell Bryce about him at their next meeting.

He went back to the list, sighing as he flipped through the pages to try and find the correct name when his gaze flicked over something else. He froze, frantically turning back a few pages until he found the scribble he had thought said … He quickly deciphered the name and jumped up from the table, practically sprinting to the Taurus outside as he hastily dug his phone out of his pocket, the log book falling open in the passengers seat. Neal shot anxious glances over at it from time to time, splitting his attention between the street, his call, and the name staring him down in night-black ink.

Fergus MacLeod Crowley.

* * *

Burke was tailing him.

Bryce had thought the man to be a simple annoyance before now, but now he was becoming too much of a nuisance. Growling in frustration, the spy took a sharp left, ignoring the blare of car horns as he ran the red light. Burke took a smooth right.

Eyes narrowing in suspicion, Bryce's frustration only grew when he turned off onto another road only to find Burke's car a few feet behind him. He was almost too grateful when his phone rang – yelling at a few people and venting his anger would do him some good right now.

"Hello?" He greeted between gritted teeth, swerving in another sharp turn in yet another attempt to throw Burke off his tail. He was slightly surprised and more than slightly suspicious when he noticed that Burke's car suddenly took a U-turn and began driving back the way they came.

"_Bryce. Thank goodness, you picked up. Look, I need you to stop what you're doing and go to that coffee shop right across from the office,_" the familiar voice over the phone said. Bryce frowned at the hurried tone.

"Uh, I'm kind of in the middle of something – " Bryce started, but was quickly cut off.

"_It's really important. And it involves something the others around here wouldn't be too … keen to know about, if you get what I'm saying._" Comprehension dawned on Bryce, and he too took a U-turn, taking a different route from Burke back to the office.

"Why are you talking like that?" Bryce asked after shoving the phone against his ear to take a two handed turn, fixing it with his right hand and letting his left hand control the car. "I'm all alone over here."

"_Because said others are wandering through the halls that I'm trying to get out of._" Bryce laughed at the irritation in his voice.

"Yeah, yeah. I'll be right there."

"_You'd better_," came the dry response.

"Alright, relax. I'll be there soon. See you in like five minutes," Bryce said, ignoring the threatening tone in the man's voice.

"_And if you're not –_ "

"Goodbye, Agent Crowley," Bryce shut the phone, giving an exasperated sigh.

Agents could be so _pestering_ sometimes.

* * *

"Damn it, Bryce, pick up your damn phone!" Neal shouted into the receiver, continuing to shout several profanities at the phone even when the second beep signaled the voice mail had been sent. He was going to full on throttle the man when he caught sight of him.

Throwing caution to the wind, he kicked the accelerator to the floor and dialed a number with movements too fast to be considered anything less than rushed. He didn't let up on the pedal, despite running several right lights and stop signs. His brother was in trouble, and he wasn't going to let anything get in his way when he helped him.

Nobody would lay a finger on Bryce while Neal was still alive and kicking.

Unfortunately, Neal's promise of protection did not extend to himself, and he almost screamed in frustration as lights flashed and sirens blared behind him. He swerved to the side of the road, tapped impatiently on the wheel of his car, and, as the police officer finally sauntered over to Neal's window, he decided he had had enough of the slow, sloppy work.

He punched the officer in the face through the window and drove off, leaving deep skid marks and a groaning official in his wake.

Neal had only made it a few blocks away from the office when he saw the next sirens blare behind him. A menacing growl tearing from his throat, Neal swerved into a labyrinth of alleys and ditched the car somewhere he was sure the cops wouldn't find in more than ten minutes. He crept out and walked casually out onto the normal city blocks until breaking into a sprint, whipping out his phone and checking the GPS on his brother's cell.

The coffee shop. Oh, how he had despised that place from the beginning. The workers always seemed to be crazy people. Or maybe that was just the style of the shop – one of those diners with the tacky checkered floor and red leather seats. It looked like a place from the eighties, despite the fact that it was the 2010, and it wasn't even a diner, but a coffee shop. Neal ducked his head, cupping his hands and peering into the dirty shop window to see what was going on inside, his eyes immediately raking the place to find his brother sitting in a corner booth with – ah, Hell. Or, at least, a resident of Hell.

He didn't dare go near, despite his instincts telling him to act on his impulsive behavior and beat the demon into the next century. Instead, he calmly strode to the door, yanking the entrance a bit more forceful than necessary when it didn't budge. Neal growled again, his voice making an embarrassing yelp as suddenly the cashier was at the door, head tilted to the side, keys in hand and eyes as dark and glossy as obsidian. The smirk on his face only succeeded in fueling Neal's proceeding rage.

But, instead of waving the key in front of Neal's face and hiding behind a mask of mock-innocence just to mock him, the cashier demon glanced over to the same corner booth (or, Neal thinks he did. His eyes were still as black as coal, but he turned his body towards the table with Bryce) and began to twist the key in the lock. However, before Neal could step inside, the demon held up a hand, saying, "Now, now, we wouldn't want you hurting us on such a small visit, would we?"

Neal glared. The demon sneered.

Neal risked a glance upwards to check if Bryce was okay (and weaponless, also) but the cashier-demon was blocking his line of sight. The twin knelt down, hooking a hand into a holster positioned directly above his ankle-sock but also right below his tracking anklet. The demon raised his eyebrows. Neal sighed, unstrapping a line of iron-silver alloy throwing knives on his opposite leg, dislodging a packet of salt from his shirt cuff, and retrieving another gun held by his hip.

The demon smiled as he took the offending weapons and handed them off carefully to a passing waitress, the grin on his face more feral expression than anything. Neal returned the gesture, making sure to straighten up to his full height and broaden his shoulders as much as possible. With demons, sometimes dominance is everything.

Obviously, this demon wasn't having any of it, and the grin dropped from his face as he clenched his fist, Neal's airways mimicking the motion and suffocating him on air. "You think you're better than me, you little – " He never got to finish, because there was a large snap, and the cashier's body crumpled, a short hesitation before Hellish smoke began billowing out from the poor guy's mouth as the demon attempted to flee out the back door. It didn't make it that far, dissipating and thinning out until it was only a darker shade than the normal air around it.

"Pesky little thing, he was. More annoying than helpful at times. Still, what a waste," a voice sighed from across the room, and Neal's gaze trailed from the cashier's broken, disfigured neck to the tacky shop floor to Crowley's disappointed face. "It's just so hard to find good grunts, though." He looked up from where he was looking at the cashier's body to find Neal's gaze. His voice was no longer tainted with fake disappointment. "They're all idiots." Neal growled, the sound becoming more and more of a natural reaction of annoyance and anger.

He pitched forward, hoping to catch Crowley by surprise, to no avail. Crowley simply sighed, waving his hand in a lax 'come and get it' gesture, and Neal felt his body move unwillingly forward, almost crashing into the table when Crowley held up a 'stop' gesture.

"Oh, come on. I only came to talk. It's not like this body is going to be able to hold me much longer, anyway. Might as well make the best of it," Crowley said, an odd lilt in his voice. Slowly, painfully slowly, Neal was dragged into the booth seat opposite to Bryce and adjacent to Crowley.

"You just murdered an innocent boy – I think the time to talk has passed," Neal hissed, barely noticing Bryce's uncharacteristic silence for the matter. Crowley simply rolled his eyes, and looked lazily over at Bryce. "What d'you think, Brycey-Bu? Should we talk?"

Bryce looked up, his eyes narrowed, but said nothing. Crowley seemed to take this silence considerably well. He laughed. "Aw," he cooed, his face screwing up in an odd sneer. "Has the big brother finally figured it out?" The façade dropped suddenly, something Neal found must occur often, as this was already the second time this had happened. "Good. It's time we've got this whole shebang moving – never mind the small plans that the grunges are waiting for, we've got dynamite compared to them!" Neal's eyebrows furrowed, confusion littering his features as he turned his gaze to Bryce and his now guilt-ridden expression, his refusal to meet his eyes.

Something was really, really wrong.

Crowley snickered, and Neal would've laughed at the odd noise, had the situation not been so dire. The demon glanced between the two of them, and seemed to realize something. "Oh, wow, am I quite rude. I didn't even introduce myself." He reached over the table on both sides, grabbing both Bryce's then Neal's hand.

"Nice to meet you," he said. "My name is Lilith." There was a pause in which Neal and Bryce's expressions both morphed into disbelief.

"_Lilith?_" Neal stuttered. "Isn't that a girl's name?"

The ever-present smirk on Crowley's – Lilith's – face disappeared, and formed into an expression of pure distaste. He – she? – shrugged. "Like I said earlier, this body isn't going to be able to hold me for much longer." She – he? Oh, Screw it, _It _glared over at one of the demons on the other side of the counter, and Neal could feel it's terrified gaze stretching over to them. He didn't blame him, much, as Lilith's face went from vague distaste to pure disgust. "A lot of the lower level demons have been messing around in here, driving this man insane. You don't want to see the mess that's in here, right now."

Neal grimaced, thoughts and escape plans running through his mind until a thought came to him. "Hold on," he said, looking up at Lilith. "I thought Crowley was dead?" Bryce looked up in confusion, the gears working in his mind, working without a puzzle piece to find out how Neal knew. And Neal knew the exact moment when Bryce decided to go with it, and trust Neal's research skills. A warm feeling covered Neal's chest, until Lilith's slightly-crazed laugh broke his train of thought.

"Of course," she said, and Neal had to backtrack a moment to remember his question. "But trust me – as bad as Hell can be, you'd be amazed what kind of people they'll hand over with a bit of … persuasion." Neal dreaded to know what types of persuasion a demon like Lilith would use, especially as she was now zoned out, looking quite pleased with herself.

Lilith shook herself out of whatever sort of happy daze she had been stuck in, and Neal felt a shiver wrack his spine. She blinked in his direction and smiled a trademark demon smirk, standing from her leather seat and pushing past Neal with an air of confidence – but that's not what caught Neal's attention. She brushed past him with an acrid scent of sulfur, and the puzzle pieces began forming a picture – or at least part of one.

Neal wasn't sure what he was doing, thinking of the crime scene at this time, but now he understood. Sulfur was found at the crime scene, which meant a demon. He wouldn't doubt for a second that the case was simply a distraction from their new lives to suck them back into their old ones. Figures.

His attention was dragged back to Lilith as she stood by the doorway, turning back only to say, "Well, this is where I must go. But, just in case, good luck. You're gonna need it." She was gone.

There was silence for a moment, until various workers that were moving around and blocking the exits suddenly snapped their heads to the sky, black clouds shooting out and flying out of the doors and windows, disappearing in the sky, unseen by any bystanders. And now, Neal and Bryce were alone.

"… So. You want to tell me what that was about?" Neal began bluntly, not caring for sugarcoating right now. However, Bryce only shrugged.

"I have no idea … " Neal sighed. Clearly, Bryce did have an idea – he just wasn't going to share it with him. And Neal could tell, because when you grow up with a twin, you learn to know when they lie, when they tell the truth, and when they've been doing something behind your back.

"Yeah. Okay," Neal said, sliding out of the seat and stretching his limbs before reaching for his weapons by the counter. Bryce looked back at him. "What does that mean?"

Neal looked up, a low growl coming from his throat. "'What does that mean?' Dude, something obviously happened back there, and you're not telling me. You honestly think I'm just going to take it? Just like that?"

Bryce frowned. "That! Right there. You're doing it right now!"

Neal scrunched up his face in incredulous disbelief. "What are you talking about?"

Bryce sighed, "I'm talking about you. You've been on edge ever since I've called you, and you keep making that weird … growling noise."

Neal threw his hands in the air, advancing toward his twin. "Yeah, well, that's what happens when your twin brother suddenly calls out of nowhere and tries to take your job and suck you back into the life you never wanted to be in in the first place!" Neal yelled. Bryce didn't miss a beat, his calm body language and tone settling Neal, if only a little bit.

"Yeah, except I don't think that's it. Or, at least, I don't think that's all of it. You see, I think this is just everything finally catching up to you, first the getting me out of the CIA, then the running away, and everything following up to this."

Neal paused. "Kate's death?" he whispered. "You think I'm 'on edge' because of Kate's death? Let me tell you something, Bryce. Maybe this time, you'll actually get it, because I'm not saying it again. I. Am. _Fine!_"

There was a moment of silence, the lack of noise a broad contrast to Neal's loud voice. Bryce looked sadly at his brother, the eye contact only making the onslaught of emotions harder on both parts.

"Yeah, well, you're not going to be fine after I tell you what I found."

* * *

Neal had agreed with Bryce, after a few ideas were thrown around and information shared. They had also traded colored contact lenses, their eye colors being the key piece of information on the shared note that could have crashed the entire con/mission/whatever the Hell they were calling it. Either way, they both decided that they would go ahead and finish up what needed to be finished and then they would meet and Bryce would inform Neal of whatever news he needed to give.

And, in all truth, the ghost problem didn't prove to be that hard to solve. After contemplating this and realizing that Bryce might've done this simply to get him back into the flow of hunting with something easy, he dismissed the thought, remembering that Wes was one of the only hunters that actually appealed to Bryce's odd quirks and references to his missions with the CIA. He was one of the only hunters that seemed to realize, hey. They're children, but they've also grown up in the life. He was a good man.

So, all in all, Neal only had to find where Wes was buried, dig him up, and burn his bones. No problem, really.

Except for that weird guy that didn't seem to let him out of his sight.

It was the same guy, he noticed, that he had seen in the police station – brown trench coat, dress pants, backwards tie, and the same piercing blue gaze. The man followed him, from the police station again to his car, and he even thought he saw him on the side of the roads as he was driving. When he looked for a second time, however, he would never see him. It was as if he disappeared whenever Neal looked at him twice. Neal put it down to paranoia. Yeah – he had confided in Crowley, and he – she – it turned out to be a very powerful demon. He had a right to be wary. The caution was just going a bit far, into paranoia. That's it.

Finally, he arrived at the grave site – some lonesome graveyard in the middle of nowhere – and fetched a shovel from the side of an old abandoned warehouse, walking over and beginning to dig. As he was digging, he glanced up and saw the man staring at him beside the warehouse by the grave. Neal refused to blink, instead watching as the man tilted his head to the side, not blinking, his gaze never wavering. Finally, after the thought chorus of 'What the Hell?' turned to 'I really need to blink' inside Neal's mind, he finally closed his eyes for a split second.

The man was gone.

He looked around wildly, searching for anywhere the man could be, and found that one of the only logical explanations would be in the warehouse looming over the graveyard. Neal elected to ignored it, and he did.

For about ten seconds.

After scooping two shovelfuls of dirt, curiosity finally got the better of him, and Neal walked up to the rickety warehouse. There was one lamp near the front of the building, and Neal looked in apprehension as the bulb flickered and brightened to unnatural brightness until finally dying for good. Bathed in darkness, the shadow of the warehouse was only accentuated by the weak moonlight, rather than a blinding light, creating a much less intimidating figure on the dying grass. Neal found his confidence rise a little, but it didn't overshadow his caution. He wasn't an idiot, after all. He pushed open the doors that squealed in protest and let out a breath he was holding.

The warehouse was empty.

_Boom!_ Lightning cracked outside of the warehouse, and Neal whipped around as the doors shook and slammed behind him, shaking the entire building as the windows and walls shook with tremors, as if it was frightened of what was coming – and, therefore, so was Neal.

The warehouse had been brightly lit by lamps hanging by cords on the ceiling when he stepped inside, though no lights shone through the windows near the top when he was outside.

The sky had been clear, the stars' glittering shine sharp against a black coating of night sky, not a cloud in sight, and no chance of a storm.

Something big was coming, and Neal wanted to run, despite the fact that the only entrance and exit in the warehouse was currently being manipulated by some very powerful force, which was also making the entire structure shake.

And, finally, it all abruptly stopped, and Neal was left in the dark.

Then, a few seconds later, just when Neal thought it was over, with another crack of lightning, both of the doors blasted open, the door on the right smacking Neal on the back and sending him sprawling to the ground. The door on the left banged on the wall it was connected to, while the one on the right creaked back, pushed away as Neal saw the man from earlier hold it to keep it from slamming into him.

"Wow," Neal remarked, groaning at the pain in his spine. "Thanks for that. That was _wonderful._"

"Oh. My apologies, I did not see you." The man's voice sounded … disconnected, disused, as if he didn't exactly know how to use it, or hadn't in a long time. After a moment of silence, Neal looked him over. He just seemed awkward, apologizing for making a big entrance without making sure the only observant was out of the way of stray flying doors. And yet, even though the man was apologizing, he made no move to help Neal, instead staying stock still, not moving a muscle.

"Great," Neal said, finally pulling himself up and facing his offender. They both stood there for a moment, until Neal decided to screw it and stick his hand out, saying, "Hi. Neal Caffrey."

The man stared at his hand as if it was a rotting piece of flesh, so Neal retracted it and hung it by his side. The man stared somewhat defiantly into Neal's eyes – for reasons Neal had no idea. He hadn't even met him before, never mind give him a reason to dislike him – and said quite boldly, "I am Castiel. I am an Angel of the Lord."

Neal just looked at him for a moment. "… Okay … hello."

'Castiel' looked at him strangely, his head tilting to the side like it had when they were both outside. "… Hello."

Neal shook his head, wondering what the Hell he was doing as he attempted to break the ice and said, "So. You come here often?"

Castiel furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. "No, why would I visit a place like this more than once?" Neal sighed, undeniably conceding the point. Okay. He could deal with this.

"It … It's just an expression – what are you doing here? And why is a … what, an 'Angel of the Lord' doing following _me?" _Neal said, rubbing his back where the collision with the door still ached.

Castiel tilted his head to the side. "You and your brother. You two are in serious peril."

For a moment, Neal could only think who on Earth said 'peril' anymore, and then caught up with what the angel had said. "Oh, thanks. That doesn't make me feel special at all."

When he saw Castiel's face contort into the same confused expression as before, Neal sighed and interrupted before the angel could start. "You know what, never mind. Look, I've gotta take care of this ghost and get back to my brother. Apparently, he's got something that – "

"I have taken care of the ghost. Mr. Madison has passed on, and is resting peacefully in heaven." And if only Neal knew what to say to that …

"Uh, okay. Thanks. But, I've still got to drive back to New York, and that's gonna take a while – "

"That will not be a problem," Castiel stated, advancing toward Neal, who took an equal amount of steps backwards, holding his hands up in a defensive gesture as the angel reached out with two fingers. "Woah, woah, woah, what the hell?"

However, the angel didn't respond, only moving forward and tapping Neal's temple. In turn, Neal's eyes snapped shut from the sudden churning feeling in Neal's gut, like he's gonna throw up 'cause there's a pressure on his throat, behind his eyes, in his stomach, the back of his neck, and he opens his eyes –

They're in an empty elevator, slowly moving upwards, pinging at the eighth floor, and the doors slide open. Neal looks to the back of the elevator for an explanation, has the words on his lips, except no one's in the elevator with him.

But people are looking at him, irritated, from the outside of the box, so he strolls out of the elevator and into the FBI office, looking around until he catches the gaze of Bryce, whose wild eyes rapidly widen, body language stiffening in a message: "What the Hell? Get the Hell out of here!"

Neal mouths, "Conference Room." Bryce shoots him an incredulous glance and rolls his eyes when he realizes Neal was being serious. Neal can see him talk with Peter, Diana, and Jones, and Neal starts to walk a little too fast to the elevators, shuffling into an empty one and hitting the 'close doors' button. He's sure Bryce has seen the elevator he's gone into, and delves into an old memory while he's waiting.

_ "Who dat, By?" A young Neal asked, pointing unnecessarily at the TV screen as an old balding man appears in the middle of the box._

_ "That's Agent Fornell, Neal," Bryce said quickly and shortly, quite annoyed at the repetitive questions from his younger brother. Neal paid no attention to his brother's irritation, instead watching intently as 'Agent Fornell' yelled to another man with silver hair, "Conference room. Now."_

_ Before Neal could even form the question, Bryce said, "That's Agent Gibbs. The conference room? That's the elevator. That's where they can talk without anybody listening."_

_ Neal's eyes widened. "Rally?" he whispered, his young tongue unable to pronounce most words correctly, really being one of them._

_ Bryce, finding Neal's amazement amusing more than the show than the moment, turned to his brother, and said slowly, as if he was also amazed, "Yeah. It's like, one of the only places no one can see, or hear whatever you're doing. It's the coolest thing ever, 'cause it's where spies always go to change into different spy outfits."_

_ Neal was now looking at Bryce with rapt attention, whispering, "Coool …"_

_ Then, their mother suddenly walked through the door, and Bryce hurriedly switched off the TV, about to pretend to continue a conversation about fighting techniques with Neal, but Neal beat him to it._

_ "Mom! Mom! I know want I want for my bird-day!" the young boy shouted, and their mom glanced at him, her eyes narrowed. He continued. "I want a El-Vader!"_

_ Their mom approached the faded, flowery-patterned couch, a small frown marring her face. "You want an elevator?" Neal nodded vigorously, and Bryce made sure to intervene before this got out of hand._

_ "Hey, Neal, you wanna see that one karate move I learned from one of my friends at school?" he quickly changed the subject. Neal's attention was switched immediately, and he cheered as Bryce dragged Neal outside into their backyard, Bryce looking back to make sure their mother wasn't following._

_ He smiled as he turned back to Neal, taking a fighting stance. "Alright, first you start like this … "_

Neal smiled wistfully at the old memory, wishing he could go back and fix everything, get their mother off of their backs about hunting and training, get Ellen to let them play with Jo instead of training, and getting them a proper education, not only every few days in a public school only to transfer again because WitSec holdings demanded it.

He was broken out of his musings by a four-knock rap on the elevator door, and he hit the 'open doors' button, pulling Bryce into the elevator with a quick glance around to make sure no one was looking or following.

Bryce stumbled, shouting, "What the Hell, Neal! I was in the middle of a conference and you show up by the glass doors looking like you wrestled a sandstorm, you don't know _who_ could have been watching - _what_ are you doing?"

Neal held a finger up, flipping the 'elevator on/off' switch so that the doors wouldn't open, and the elevator wouldn't move until they turned it back on. After this, he looked at his finger, then down at his suit, and laughed, the unexpected noise startling both of them. Neal was covered in head to toe with dust and grime and dirt from the graveyard and warehouse, and he didn't even notice, too preoccupied with the freaking angel messing with his head. Then, he realized that he wasn't saying anything, and must have looked pretty crazy.

"Sorry," he said, looking up at Bryce's face. "It's just … You are never going to believe what just happened to me."

"Okay, just hold on a second. First of all, why the Hell are we in an _elevator?_" Bryce sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. Neal immediately blushed, looking away and mumbling sheepishly, "It's the place where no one can see you or hear you."

Bryce's head shot up, and a smile stretched his face. "You remembered that?"

Neal rolled his eyes. "Duh. I was so disappointed when you guys didn't get me an elevator for my birthday." Bryce looked concernedly over at him. "Don't you remember … "

"We made one out of cardboard at Christmas? Yeah, I remember that. I loved that Christmas, even if most of the decorations were fake and stolen." Bryce laughed, flapping a hand. "Yeah, well, everyone has fake and stolen decorations," he said flippantly, and Neal found them drifting too far off topic, despite the warm feeling spreading through his veins.

"Yeah. Sure. Anyway, I was just over at this police station, doing the job" – he didn't miss Bryce's slight flinch – "when I saw this guy. And … thing is, I saw him last time I tried to do the job. Except this time, the guy followed me, and, I was digging when I saw him again. And I just realized, I never told you about him when we met last time. I swore I would talk about him. That's weird." Bryce looked up from his gaze on his fingers, which he were entwining through the entire conversation. He urged Neal on, saying, "Okay. Are you going anywhere fast with this?"

Neal scoffed, his words tumbling out of his mouth faster than he could keep up with. "Yeah, gimme a sec. So, I saw him. And, I blinked, and he was gone. So I decided to check out the warehouse he was standing by, and the weirdest thing happened. I went in, and this voo-doo stuff happened, the entire building started shaking, lightning flashing despite the sky being absolutely clear a few seconds ago, and I was standing near the door when the doors shot open, and one of them hit me from behind.

"And I looked up, and it was the guy. And we … talked. And, turns out, he came to tell me we're in danger, and that he took care of the ghost. And I told him I needed to get back to you, and he said okay, and he touched me on the head with his hand and voo-doo stuff and suddenly I was in the elevator, and it opened, but the guy was gone, and I found you, and now we're here," Neal said in one breath, panting by the end of it. After he caught his breath, he said, "That fast enough for you?"

Bryce scrunched up his face. "Wait … so, what was he?"

Neal shook his head, forgetting he left out that part. "Well … He said he was … an Angel of the Lord." Bryce's eyebrows shot up near his hairline, "You believed him?"

Neal shrugged. "Why not? We've already met demons, why not angels?" Bryce nodded, processing this. "Okay, there are angels. What the Hell have they been doing all this time?" Neal shrugged, saying, "I don't know, but judging by this guy, I'm pretty sure they haven't been keeping up with the times, much."

"Hm." Bryce thought for a while, and finally looked up slowly. "Hey, Neal. I … uh … I think we might need to go somewhere you can sit down, if you want to hear what I've found out."

Neal looked at him questioningly, saying, "Okay … Why?"

Bryce shuffled uncomfortably. "What I found, it's kind of … sensitive." Neal's eyes widened. "You found something on Kate? What is it? What did you find? Did you find her killer?"

Bryce sighed, saying, "I'm not sure, Neal. But … I think we need to go somewhere better for this conversation." Neal rolled his eyes exasperatedly, replying, "By, I can handle whatever it is you're hiding. Trust me."

Bryce only looked at him warily, before sitting cross-legged on the floor of the elevator. Not saying a word, Neal joined him. The spy turned to open his bag, and took out a Classified manila folder, hesitating before taking a paper out of it, and handing it to the conman.

After a few moments of reading, Neal looked up in confusion, replying in a small voice. "I … This is the Witness recount of the accident with Kate's death. … I've already read this dozens of times, Bryce. I've got it memorized by now." Bryce didn't reply, only nodding, taking out another paper and handing it to Neal, who jerked back in surprise as he read.

" … Why do you have Dad's folder – " he broke off as he noticed one paragraph in the report. His eyes widened, and he met Bryce's gaze with a turmoil of emotions coursing through his veins and bursting in his irises as he looked from one page to the other, back and forth a few times. "He … This man … He's a witness in both of these. Do you think he … "

"Yeah," Bryce said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "But … there's also this."

Neal took yet another paper from Bryce, this time reading it out loud.

"'Zelaza = Azazel'. The Witness' name is Zelaza, in both reports. Who's Azazel?" Neal asked, still confused.

"Azazel, from all of the word I could find from demons, is apparently one of the demons working on a really big project to find something called the Colt. But, that's not what's important." Bryce paused. "He … He has a specialty."

"Specialty? You mean, the way he kills … people?" Neal said, a lump forming inexplicably in his throat and making his voice small.

"Fire," Bryce choked out, obviously suffering from the same throat condition and regretting saying it as soon as the word left his lips.

For a moment, Neal didn't get it. Okay, this guy was at both places. Okay this guy's a demon. He's looking for a Colt, whatever that is. He kills people with … with …

"No …" Neal whispered, and Bryce flinched. "No, a _demon_ did _not_ kill _Kate_." He said, denial sinking in, only to be fueled further by a boiling rage, bubbling in his stomach and rising like the bile he swallowed down thickly. "A normal, _real person_ killed Kate," Neal snarled, baring his teeth as he leaned forward, towering over his older brother, despite their cross-legged positions. "You're _wrong._"

Bryce just shook his head, his eyes glued to the floor. "Neal … "

"_No!_ No, you don't get to do this," Neal roared, jumping to his feet and pointing an accusing finger at his twin. "You don't get to come here, tell me – _lie to me,_ to get me away, to find out a way to drag me back into this life – you don't have the _right_ to tellme that the _one_ person I fell in love with, the _only_ person who managed to love me for _who I really_ _was_, was murdered by a _demon._ Do you hear me? _You don't have that right!"_

Bryce looked up with steadying sapphire eyes, calm and steady as always in bad situations. "Neal, _listen to me_. I'm not trying to drag you back in. I'm trying to tell you, I'm giving you a choice. You can come with me, and try and find Kate's killer on the road, or you can stay here, and find him using the help of the system," Bryce pressed, looking honestly up at his brother as he paced, then paused.

"_What?_" Neal asked faintly. "Are you kidding me? What the _h_ell kind of question is that? Go out there and search for Kate's killer, gun the son of a bitch down myself, or stay here and coordinate the search? You _know_ that's not a choice, Bryce. That's blackmail. How am I supposed to stay here, with this life, now? You've left me without a choice, Bryce. You're sucking me back into the life, just like everybody else has. _Just like mom did_."

Bryce stood up at that, his calm façade faltering as he came to his own defense, his height winning over Neal's as they stretched their legs. The older twin shoved a finger in Neal's face, seething, "No. You don't get to compare me to her. You know I tried as hard as I could to protect you from her, from this life. I'd like to remind you, Neal, that _I left the life as well!_ I left _mom_ behind, I left _Jo_ behind, I left _Ellen_ behind, I left _my entire life_ behind!" His voice lowered to a self-loathing whisper, his eyes straying to the floor again. "I left _you_ behind. And I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry." He breathed, and made steady eye contact again, saying, "But I made my choice, Neal. And I'm catching Kate's killer. I wouldn't _dare_ kill him, because that's your job, no matter the circumstances. But _by_ _God_ I will catch him for you. And it's up to you on whether or not you think you'll be of more use _here_, or in the _field."_

Neal took a deep breath, slowly finding himself nodding. After a few minutes, only shown by the impatient ticking of both brother's watches, Neal blew out a deep breath, running a hand through his hair and looking into his twin's eyes. "Yeah … Alright." He regarded his brother's wary but firm body language, determination gleaming bright in his naturally sparkling emerald eyes.

"When do we start?"

* * *

**A/N: Alright! So, that's Cas and Lilith introduced, they'll come back sometime soon. Azazel has got some Shit coming to him, but we'll get to that later. If there's anything you missed, something that could've used clarification, some spot that bothers you or something, tell me and I'll try to revise it. Oh, and, yes, I know Bryce and Neal's eye color should both be blue, but whatever. I wanted them different as a plot convenience, you've caught me. It was also simply because I love thinking of Neal with green eyes, but you didn't actually need to know that. In case you're wondering, I (badly) Photoshopped one of the White Collar pics and changed the eye color and the words. I was bored, gimme a break. Hope you liked, and would love if you R&amp;R! **

**I love you all, and I'm starting the next chapter soon! **

**~IsomorphicTARDIS**


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